318 players submitted answers to the annual questionnaire, written by the staff of Hockey Night in Canada and the National Hockey League Player’s Association.

Joel Quenneville, who some Blackhawks fans were screaming to have fired as little as eight days ago, saw his league-wide player approval rating in the “Coach players would most like to play for” category increase from 6 percent in the 2010-11 player poll to 11% this season. Quenneville placed second to Pittsburgh’s Dan Bylsma, who again received 21% of votes cast in the category.

In last year’s poll, 11% of players indicated the Chicago Blackhawks as the team they would most-like to play for, putting the Blackhawks in a tie for second with the Vancouver Canucks. This time around the Blackhawks received the most votes supplanting the Detroit Red Wings who topped the category a year ago. 14% of players responding indicated the Blackhawks were the team they’d most-like to play on. Detroit slid into second-place with a slight drop at 13% of the votes. Boston came in 3rd taking 11% of the votes, also the biggest one-year jump of any NHL team. Read more »